}}'''Tolkien Gateway''' (or simply '''TG''') is a not-for-profit collaborative [[wikipedia:wiki|wiki]] devoted to the [[Index:Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien|works]] of [[J.R.R. Tolkien]], being the largest Tolkien-related encyclopedia on the [[wikipedia:World Wide Web|World Wide Web]].<ref name="List">"[[List of Tolkien Encyclopedias|List of Tolkien Encyclopedias]]", based on research by [[User:Mith|Mith]] (accessed [[19 November|November 19]] [[2010]])</ref> It strives to be the most extensive and complete online resource with content relating not just to the works of [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] but also information on Tolkien-related images, adaptations, people, places, events, societies, and other works of scholarly and academic interest.

}}'''Tolkien Gateway''' (or simply '''TG''') is a not-for-profit collaborative [[wikipedia:wiki|wiki]] devoted to the [[Index:Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien|works]] of [[J.R.R. Tolkien]], being the largest Tolkien-related encyclopedia on the [[wikipedia:World Wide Web|World Wide Web]].<ref name="List">"[[List of Tolkien Encyclopedias|List of Tolkien Encyclopedias]]", based on research by [[User:Mith|Mith]] (accessed [[19 November|November 19]] [[2010]])</ref> It strives to be the most extensive and complete online resource with content relating not just to the works of [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] but also information on Tolkien-related images, adaptations, people, places, events, societies, and other works of scholarly and academic interest.

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Inspired by the recent release of ''[[The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy]]'', Tolkien Gateway was founded by [[User:Hyarion|Hyarion]] on [[1 January|January 1]], [[2003]] as [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net], then [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.tk http://tolkiengateway.tk], before eventually opening up as [http://tolkiengateway.net http://tolkiengateway.net] on [[3 June|June 3]], [[2005]]. Tolkien Gateway uses the same [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki MediaWiki] software as [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] and [http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] whilst operating a [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html GNU-FDL] licence. Tolkien Gateway has a [http://wikiindex.org/Category:WikiFactor wikifactor] of 50.<ref>Personal research by [[User:Amroth|Amroth]]</ref>

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Inspired by the recent release of [[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|''The Lord of the Rings'' (film series)]], Tolkien Gateway was founded by [[User:Hyarion|Hyarion]] on [[1 January|January 1]], [[2003]] as [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net], then [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.tk http://tolkiengateway.tk], before eventually opening up as [http://tolkiengateway.net http://tolkiengateway.net] on [[3 June|June 3]], [[2005]]. Tolkien Gateway uses the same [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki MediaWiki] software as [http://www.wikia.com Wikia] and [http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] whilst operating a [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html GNU-FDL] licence. Tolkien Gateway has a [http://wikiindex.org/Category:WikiFactor wikifactor] of 57.<ref>Personal research by [[User:Amroth|Amroth]]</ref>

==Objective==

==Objective==

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===History by year===

===History by year===

====2003====

====2003====

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Inspired by the recent release of ''[[The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy]]'', [[User:Hyarion|Hyarion]] created TolkienGateway on [[1 January|January 1]], [[2003]] as a community and an encyclopedia at [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net]. Sporting a tan-coloured skin, TolkienGateway made use of the free [http://www.phpnuke.org/ PHP-Nuke] software.<ref name="Archive CJB">[http://web.archive.org Internet Archive: Wayback Machine], "[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net]" (accessed [[21 November|November 21]], [[2010]])</ref>

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Inspired by the recent release of [[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|''The Lord of the Rings'' (film series)]], [[User:Hyarion|Hyarion]] created TolkienGateway on [[1 January|January 1]], [[2003]] as a community and an encyclopedia at [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net]. Sporting a tan-coloured skin, TolkienGateway made use of the free [http://www.phpnuke.org/ PHP-Nuke] software.<ref name="Archive CJB">[http://web.archive.org Internet Archive: Wayback Machine], "[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net http://tolkiengateway.cjb.net]" (accessed [[21 November|November 21]], [[2010]])</ref>

In January [[2012]], news spread about [http://twitter.com/lotrproject Emil Johansson]'s ''[http://lotrproject.com/ The Lord of the Rings Family Tree Project]'' — a genealogy of characters from Tolkien's [[legendarium]], where each character carries a link to the respective Tolkien Gateway article.<ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/01/23/53027-student-produces-middle-earth-genealogy-site/|articlename=Student produces Middle-earth genealogy site|dated=23 January 2012|website=TORN|accessed=24 January 2012}}</ref><ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/24/lord-of-the-ring-family-tree_n_1227790.html?ref=uk-culture|articlename=King Geek? Lord Of The Rings Super Fan Traces Middle-Earth Family Tree|dated=24 January 2012|website=[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ ''The Huffington Post'']|accessed=24 January 2012}}</ref>

In January [[2012]], news spread about [http://twitter.com/lotrproject Emil Johansson]'s ''[http://lotrproject.com/ The Lord of the Rings Family Tree Project]'' — a genealogy of characters from Tolkien's [[legendarium]], where each character carries a link to the respective Tolkien Gateway article.<ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/01/23/53027-student-produces-middle-earth-genealogy-site/|articlename=Student produces Middle-earth genealogy site|dated=23 January 2012|website=TORN|accessed=24 January 2012}}</ref><ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/24/lord-of-the-ring-family-tree_n_1227790.html?ref=uk-culture|articlename=King Geek? Lord Of The Rings Super Fan Traces Middle-Earth Family Tree|dated=24 January 2012|website=[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ ''The Huffington Post'']|accessed=24 January 2012}}</ref>

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In September 2012, the [[Mythgard Institute]] podcast "[[Riddles in the Dark]]" episode 17, featuring [[Corey Olsen]], Dave Kale, and Trish Lambert as hosts, included a positive mention of articles (particularly [[Radagast]]) on Tolkien Gateway.<ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://www.mythgard.org/2012/09/riddles-in-the-dark-17-radagast-the-brown-and-the-movie-app/|articlename=Riddles in the Dark 17: Radagast the Brown and the Movie App|dated=14 September 2012|website=[http://www.mythgard.org/ Mythgard.org]|accessed=16 September 2012}}</ref>

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On 22 November 2012, Tolkienseminariet ("The Tolkien Seminary") in Sweden, with notable members [[Anders Stenström]] and [[Åke Bertenstam]], positively reviewed Tolkien Gateway, saying that since 2003 the wiki "''has grown rapidly and now provides copious and dependable information about Middle-earth and not least about Tolkien's life and writings''"<!-- Translated by User:Morgan -->.<ref>{{webcite|author=|articleurl=http://tolkienseminariet.wordpress.com/author/tolkienseminariet/|articlename=

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22 november 2012|dated=24 January 2013|website=[http://tolkienseminariet.wordpress.com/ Tolkienseminariet]|accessed=24 January 2013}}</ref>

Tolkien Gateway (or simply TG) is a not-for-profit collaborative wiki devoted to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, being the largest Tolkien-related encyclopedia on the World Wide Web.[1] It strives to be the most extensive and complete online resource with content relating not just to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien but also information on Tolkien-related images, adaptations, people, places, events, societies, and other works of scholarly and academic interest.

Contents

Objective

Tolkien Gateway is determined to inform you as much as possible about J.R.R. Tolkien and his masterpieces. Our goal is to have the most complete database about Middle-earth and Tolkien as possible.—Hyarion

2005

In January2005 Tolkien Gateway's IRC chat was opened; this enabled both Tolkien Gateway editors and users from other websites to congregate in a single place for discussion of their respective websites and the works of Tolkien.[17] Tolkien Gateway's IRC, irc://irc.tolkiengateway.net, is still in use today.

After a long hiatus, Tolkien Gateway opened to the public on June 3 with Hyarion as the sole administrator and bureaucrat. In order for Tolkien Gateway to have a sizeable number of articles ready for its released, many were copied from either The Encyclopedia of Arda or Wikipedia; this has since been criticised by later editors who have struggled to identify and update all such articles.[18]

Technically, 2006 was a very important year for Tolkien Gateway: it saw the introduction of the fresh Cavendish skin, the creation of a forum for editors to discuss important issues, a community portal, and the ability to embed video. Furthermore, 2006 witnessed impressive growth in page views: from less than 200,000 page views at the start of the year to a million by October, by this point Tolkien Gateway was also witnessing 3,000 pages views per day.[5]

2007

Tolkien Gateway in July 2006

Although technically relatively uneventful, 2007 saw attempts by Hyarion to increase Tolkien Gateway's user base and reach. In particular, coinciding with the release of The Children of Húrin Hyarion arranged The Children of Húrin Release Party an online gathering of artists, collectors, scholars and fans to celebrate the publication of this fresh story; a record-breaking 69 new users joined Tolkien Gateway in April 2007 as a result of this.[9] Coinciding with The Children of Húrin Release Party, Hyarion also introduced a brand new Main Page layout which still remains the basis for the current Main Page.

On October 4, Hyarion introduced interwiki links allowing Tolkien Gateway's English articles to be connected to the fellow wikis Ardapedia (German) and Kontu (Finnish).[7] Since then, interwiki links have also been expanded to the French website Tolkiendil and Farsi website Valimar.

2008

Tolkien Gateway in June 2008

The first major event of 2008 was a server move, "Due to the rapid growth of Tolkien Gateway we will be migrating to a new quad-core server with 8 gigs of RAM."[19] Tolkien Gateway moves server on roughly a year basis every time resulting in considerable downtime and residual problems; this move was no exception![20]

On April 30, 2008 the first major extension to the wiki's content was the creation of a map which seeks to list all the important locations in the world relevant to Tolkien's life, publications and adaptations.[8] The expansion of the wiki continues, reaching 7,000 articles by July 12[10] whilst gaining an extra 366 members over the course of the year, taking the total membership to 788.[9]

In the summer, Hyarion revealed to editors that he had been in discussions with the the administrators of One Wiki to Rule Them All, the Tolkien encyclopedia of Wikia, to merge the two sites together. Although the proposal wasn't fully fleshed-out, members of both communities got so far as registering their intention to vote on the issue before Wikia staff decided they were unwilling to let go of their own site - the merger never took place.[21] A happy side-effect, however, is that many One Wiki editors migrated permanently to Tolkien Gateway, including the One Wiki bureaucrat KingAragorn.[22]

what a shame. It's almost comical that they ignored the wiki until there were any talks of leaving, at which point they realized they'd be losing money so they now have all of their employees pretending to be active contributors. Anyway, we're moving past it, they are not worth the time—Hyarion on Wikia's staff attitude towards a merger of Tolkien Gateway and One Wiki to Rule Them All[22]

On 25 August, KingAragorn contacted TheOneRing.net with a proposition that Tolkien Gateway and TheOneRing.net should work in co-operation. The general premise was that the two online Tolkien communities were consubstantial and should, therefore, work together for each other's benefit. The discussion was, at first, progressive; it was mooted that, in effect, Tolkien Gateway would become TheOneRing.net's encyclopaedia, and that TheOneRing.net would become Tolkien Gateway's news portal. However, discussions came to an end because of an apparent bad history between Hyarion, the owner of Tolkien Gateway, and TheOneRing.net. Whilst there was reciprocal praise for the work achieved by both communities, no further discussions took place.[25]

Finally, on August 26, the "Gateway to Ithilien" was made the default skin for Tolkien Gateway, and - with minor alterations - still remains the default skin today.[12]

2009

Apart from another difficult server move,[26]2009 was a relatively uneventful year for Tolkien Gateway and its editors. Despite this, Tolkien Gateway gained the largest number of editors in any year (481),[9] as well as passing the threshold of 8,000 articles.

2010

Tolkien Gateway in November 2010

2010 started eventfully for Tolkien Gateway as a new editor, Gilgamesh, including Quenya and Sindarin declension templates in the majority of articles - this led to an intense discussion between Gilgamesh on the one hand, and Ederchil, Mith and Sage on the other (arguing that their appearance and canonicity were questionable). Eventually, all the templates were removed.[27]

Despite reaching its fifth birthday (as a wiki) this was left uncelebrated by the editors. Indeed, some editors expressed disquiet about existing technical problems, the paucity of editors and the inactivity of Hyarion with some editors suggesting that the project should be forked. Following this, Tolkien Gateway witness a re-emergence of its meetings,[24] Hyarion became more active (updating the MediaWiki software), Ederchil was promoted to a bureaucrat and Mith was promoted to administrator/sysop.[28] It was also at this time that, with great reluctance,[29] that members of the community decided to lock Tolkien Gateway to anonymous editors; this was in order to prevent the large numbers of spammers who were vandalising articles.[13]

During this time, many key projects were embarked upon by editors: the relatively new editor Morgan working on bibliographical information;[31] Mith working on the Timeline and years; Ederchil and Mith updated and expanded infoboxes; Mith and KingAragorn trying to remove five-years of redirected links (with the aid of their bots);[32][33] KingAragorn re-categorisation all location articles; Sage working on language-related articles; and Amroth and Pinkkeith working on video-games articles. Other high-frequency editors include: Aule the Smith, Gilgamesh, Grond, Mthomas and Theoden1, along with the aforementioned KingAragorn Bot and Mithbot.

2011

"...It is a long tale..." — Aragorn
This article or section needs expansion and/or modification. Please help the wiki by expanding it.

On 22 November 2012, Tolkienseminariet ("The Tolkien Seminary") in Sweden, with notable members Anders Stenström and Åke Bertenstam, positively reviewed Tolkien Gateway, saying that since 2003 the wiki "has grown rapidly and now provides copious and dependable information about Middle-earth and not least about Tolkien's life and writings".[43]

Criticism

Like other wikis, Tolkien Gateway has been criticised for the reliability of its information, its lack of sources and the frequency of its revisions. In particular, in the summer of 2010, Tolkien Gateway was criticised for confusing the two articles for Norman Power and Joseph Power; the prominent scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull said:

The Tolkien Gateway entry for Norman Power makes a terrible hash of it by conjoining Norman and Joseph. How on earth could the writer think that someone said to be born in 1925 (Joseph) could be a student at Oxford in the late 1930s? [..] Well, call us old-fashioned (we do), and we admit to having only a passing knowledge of the ways of wiki-creation, but it would never occur to us to post a work-in-progress, to be cleaned up by someone else, especially since people often take wiki articles, in any state of completion, as gospel truth.—Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull[44][45]

Despite Morgan launching a defence of Tolkien Gateway on The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza, although accepting that Tolkien Gateway was better than other online encyclopaedias, the members generally complained about the unreliability of Tolkien Gateway - and wikis in general - and the ephemeral nature of the Internet, with an agreement that there was a "distressing lack of sources".[46] The article English and Welsh was paraded as a particularly bad example. In response to the criticisms raised, both the "Joseph Power"/"Norman Power" and "English and Welsh" articles were amended.[47]

In a review of Tolkien Gateway, Kristine Kastle claimed that it was only appropriate for the younger reader, it suffered from poor navigation, and the design was basic, lacking colour and that the life was sucked out of it; she gave Tolkien Gateway a score of 1.5 out of 4 which translates as, "Well now at least the website is recognizable as a website; style is still not pretty much nonexistant."[48] The skin has been updated twice since the review although the navigation system has changed little.[20]

Commenting on Tolkien Gateway, Troels Forchhammer says that "[i]t suffers from the same problems as any wiki when the subject is one of some fame or notoriety and in particular when the subject lends itself to strongly held opinions". He also marks that Tolkien Gateway is "trying to add thorough references to their articles, but has still a way to go."[49]

After a suggestion from User:Morgan, Hawke Robinson and Michael Martinez discussed Tolkien Gateway on the Middle-earth Radio Talk Show on 8 August2010. The radio hosts put forward a "positive critique", praising Tolkien Gateway for "a great effort", "a nice layout", and that the website should be "recognized for all the work that has gone into this wiki". However, they also addressed the issue that "as all wikis, there's always room for improvement", especially pointing out the need for "better citation standards".[50]